To Hell and Back

by Audie Murphy

  “All right, everybody. Let’s go.”

  The command is followed by a creaking of gear and a mumble of curses.

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s a man sitting against that big tree crying.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t talk.”

  I go over and shake him by the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.” put

  “I can’t take it any more, lieutenant.”

  “What’s come over you?”

  “I don’t know. I got the shakes.”

  “You can’t make it.”

  “If I could, I would. I’m not fooling.”

  “Stick around the C.P. The krauts may hit this spot.”

  “Yessir. I’m ashamed, but I can’t help it.”

  “Have you got something on your mind?”

  “Nosir. I just started shaking.”

  “Can you sleep?”

  “I haven’t slept in a week.”

  “You better report to the medics.”

  His head goes back to his knees, and the sobbing starts again.

  “What’s wrong with that joe? Battle-happy?” asks Candler.

  “Looks like he’s taken about all he can.”

  “I know how he feels. Many’s the time I’ve just wanted to sit down and cry about the whole damned mess.”

  As we stumble through the dark forest, a man trips and accidentally jerks the trigger of his carbine. The bullet plows into the fellow just ahead of him.

  “Oh, excuse me,” says the first soldier.

  “Now, if that ain’t what I call military courtesy.”

  “Are you hurt badly?”

  “No, just had my hip shot off. What’s the matter with that tanglefoot?”

  “I tripped, and–”

  “Kohl, get him back to the C.P.; and check on that guy with the crying jag.”

  “What you want me to do with weeping Willie?”

  “Tickle him under the chin,” says a voice.

  We reach the edge of the forest. For two hours the night is filled with the clump, clump of pick and shovel gnawing at the rock-hard earth. The efforts are futile, but the exercise keeps us from freezing. When we finally give up trying to chew holes in the ground, we stamp up and down a narrow road winding through the woods to stir up heat in our bodies.

  As the dirty, gray light of dawn spreads over the terrain, a tension grips us. To the infantryman, daybreak is the critical hour. It is the customary time for attacking or being attacked. Our support has not yet arrived.

  I contact battalion headquarters.

  “Any change in orders for Company B?”

  “No. Hold on to your position. Our attack is going to be delayed.”

  I hang up the receiver and study the landscape tactically. We are at the butt-end of a rough U, whose sides are formed by fingerlike extensions of the woods stretching toward Holtzwihr. Directly before us are flat open fields beyond which I can see a church steeple and housetops in the village, a mile away. The narrow road over which we have been pounding our feet leads from the woods to the town. A drainage ditch flanks its right side. Underbrush near the forest edge has been cleared away to furnish fire breaks for the enemy.

  During the night, two tank destroyers have moved up to our position. They have parked on the road; and most of the crew members are asleep. Rousing the lieutenant in charge, I say, “You’d better get your TD’s under cover. They’re like ducks sitting in the road.”

  He climbs out through the turret, yawning.

  “If we get off, we’ll get stuck.”

  “You’ve got no cover there.”

  “If the krauts attack, we can see them coming.”

  “Okay, it’s your funeral.”

  Just across the road, the platoon machine-gun squad has set up its weapon under a tree.

  “What’s happened to the attack?” the squad sergeant asks.

  “It’s been held up.”

  He whistles and shakes his head. “How long do you think this beat-up outfit could stand off a counterattack?”

  “I don’t know. How’s your ammunition?”

  “We’ve got about four hundred rounds.”

  “Make it all count, if we are attacked.”

  “I don’t aim to do any practicing.”

  Checking the other men, I find that our right flank is exposed. Some unit failed to get up on schedule.

  The morning drags by. A forward artillery observer with a radio joins us. The icy tree branches rattle in the wind.

  Again I contact headquarters.

  “What about orders?”

  “No change. Hold your position.”

  At two o’clock in the afternoon, I see the Germans lining up for an attack. Six tanks rumble to the outskirts of Holtzwihr, split into groups of threes, and fan out toward either side of the clearing. Obviously they intend an encircling movement, using the fingers of trees for cover. I yell to my men to get ready.

  Then wave after wave of white dots, barely discernible against the background of snow, start across the field. They are enemy infantrymen, wearing snowcapes and advancing in a staggered skirmish formation.

  One of our tank destroyers starts its engine and maneuvers for a firing position. It slides into a ditch at an angle that leaves the turret guns completely useless. The driver steps on the gas; the tank wallows further into the ditch; the engine dies. The crew bails out and takes off for the rear.

  “I’m trying to contact headquarters,” shouts the artillery observer.

  I had forgotten about him. We cannot afford to have the radio captured.

  “Get to the rear,” I holler. “I’ll get the artillery by phone.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Get going. You can’t do any good. Just take care of that radio.”

  I grab a map, estimate the enemy’s position, and seize the field telephone.

  “Battalion,” cheerfully answers a headquarters lieutenant.

  “This is Murphy. We’re being attacked. Get me the artillery.”

  “Coming up.”

  “I want a round of smoke at co-ordinates 30.5 - 60; and tell those joes to shake the lead out.”

  “How many krauts?”

  “Six tanks that I can see, and maybe a couple hundred foot soldiers supporting.”

  “Good god! How close?”

  “Close enough. Give me that artillery.”

  I hang up the receiver and grab my carbine just as the enemy’s preliminary barrage hits. It is murderous. A single tree burst knocks out our machine-gun squad. The second tank destroyer is hit flush, and three of its crew are killed. The remainder, coughing and half-blinded, climb from the smoking turret and sprint down the road to the rear. At that moment I know that we are lost.

  The smoke shell whizzes over, landing beyond the oncoming Germans.

  200 right; 200 over. And fire for effect.

  Our counterbarrage is on the nose. A line of enemy infantrymen disappear in a cloud of smoke and snow. But others keep coming.

  The telephone rings.

  “How close are they?”

  “50 over, and keep firing for effect.” That artillery curtain must be kept between us and the enemy.

  The tanks are now close enough to rake our position with machine-gun fire. Of the hundred and twenty-eight men that began the drive, not over forty remain. And I am the last of seven officers. Trying to stop the armor with our small arms is useless. I yell to the men to start pulling out.

  “What about you?” shouts Kohl.

  “I’m staying up with the phone as long as I can. Get the men back, and keep them grouped. Candler will help you.”

  “Candler’s dead.”

  The telephone rings.

  “How close are they?”

  “50 over, and keep blasting. The company’s pulling back.”

  I raise my eyes and see that the men are hesitating. Clapping down the receiver, I yell, “Ge
t the hell out of here. That’s an order!”

  Kohl says something, but his words are lost in a shell burst. He shrugs his shoulders, beckons with his thumb, and the men stumble through the woods, casting worried glances backward.

  I seize my carbine and start sniping. The advance wave of infantrymen is within two hundred yards of my position.

  The telephone rings.

  “How close are they?”

  “50 over. Keep it coming.”

  Dropping the receiver, I grab the carbine and fire until I give out of ammunition. As I turn to run, I notice the burning tank destroyer. On its turret is a perfectly good machine gun and several cases of ammunition. The German tanks have suddenly veered to the left.

  I change my plans and drag the telephone to the top of the tank destroyer. The body of the lieutenant with whom I talked early in the morning is sprawled over the edge of the hatch. His throat has been cut; a small river of blood streams down the side of the tank destroyer. I finish dragging the body out and dump it into the snow.

  The telephone rings.

  “How close are they?”

  “50 over, and keep firing for effect.”

  “How close are they to your position?”

  “Just hold the phone and I’ll let you talk to one of the bastards.”

  Hastily checking the machine gun, I find that it has not been damaged. When I press the trigger, the chatter of the gun is like sweet music. Three krauts stagger and crumple in the snow.

  Crash! The tank destroyer shudders violently. Vaguely I put two and two together and conclude that the TD has received another direct hit.

  The telephone rings.

  “This is Sergeant Bowes. Are you still alive, lieutenant?”

  “Momentarily.” I spread the map on my left palm. “Correct fire:–”

  Crash! I am conscious of a flash and explosion. I reel back with the map and telephone receiver in my hands.

  “Lieutenant. Lieutenant. Can you hear me? Are you still alive, lieutenant?”

  “I think so. Correct fire: 50 over, and keep the line open.”

  I feed another belt of cartridges into the machine gun and seize the trigger again. The smoke is so thick that I can barely see through it; and the smell of smoldering flesh is again in my nostrils. But when the wind blows the smoke aside, I bore into any object that stirs.

  The gun has thrown the krauts into confusion. Evidently they cannot locate its position. Later I am told that the burning tank destroyer, loaded with gasoline and ammunition, was expected to blow up any minute. That was why the enemy tanks gave it a wide berth and the infantrymen could not conceive of a man’s using it for cover.

  I do not know about that. For the time being my imagination is gone; and my numbed brain is intent only on destroying. I am conscious only that the smoke and the turret afford a good screen, and that, for the first time in three days, my feet are warm.

  Now the Germans try a new tactic. A gust of wind whips the smoke aside; and I see an enemy sergeant in the roadside ditch not thirty yards from my position. He peers cautiously about, then turns his head and motions his squad forward. As I spin my gun barrel upon him, a billow of smoke comes betweeen us.

  For a minute or so I wait. The tree branches overhead stir stiffly in the gust, the smoke column folds to one side. The twelve Germans, huddled like partridges in the ditch, are discussing something, perhaps my possible location. I press the trigger and slowly traverse the barrel. The twelve bodies slump in a stack position. I give them another methodically thorough burst, and pick up the phone.

  “Correct fire, battalion. 50 over.”

  “Are you all right, lieutenant?”

  “I’m all right, sergeant. What are your postwar plans?”

  The barrage lands within fifty yards of the tank destroyer. The shouting, screaming Germans caught in it are silent now. The enemy tanks, reluctant to advance further without infantry support, lumber back toward Holtzwihr.

  I snatch the telephone receiver. “Sergeant. Sergeant Bowes. Correct fire: 50 over; and keep firing for effect. This is my last change.”

  “50 over? That’s your own position.”

  “I don’t give a damn. 50 over.”

  Concussion from the enemy barrage almost knocks me from the tank destroyer. For a moment I am stunned; and then I see the telephone receiver in my hand.

  “Sergeant Bowes. Battalion. Sergeant.” There is no answer. The telephone line has been knocked out.

  My cloudy brain slowly directs my actions. Carefully I fold the field map and notice that it has been riddled with shell fragments. I examine my hands and arms. They are unscratched.

  A dull pain throbs in my right leg. Looking down, I see that the trouser leg is bloody. That does not matter.

  As if under the influence of some drug, I slide off the tank destroyer and, without once looking back, walk down the road through the forest. If the Germans want to shoot me, let them. I am too weak from fear and exhaustion to care.

  20

  EXCEPT for a vague pain in my leg, I feel nothing: no sense of triumph; no exhilaration at being alive. Even the weariness seems to have passed. Existence has taken on the quality of a dream in which I am detached from all that is present. I hear the shells bursting among the trees, see the dead scattered on the ground; but I do not connect them with anything that particularly concerns me.

  I reach an outpost held by a small group of men from another company. A corporal, with a blond, bristling beard, pokes his head out of an old German foxhole dug by the roadside.

  “They ain’t headed this way, lieutenant?”

  “I don’t think so. Not right now, at least. Where’s your officer?”

  “Officer? The last’n I seen got knocked off last night.”

  “Well, you’d better keep your eyes open. The krauts are all over hell and half of Georgia.”

  “Sure, sure, lieutenant. We keep on a double alert plus tree.”

  Gradually the shock passes. The fog clears from my brain. The sky seems to have become lighter; and the air, uncommonly cold. Weariness returns to my flesh, and my knees tremble. I am now aware of the battle roar on my left. I hear the drone and whine of fighter bombers. Air support. That is good.

  Again I begin to think in terms of strategy. The Germans, deserted by their armor and slashed by our artillery, are weak and off balance in my sector. We must hit them before they can consolidate their gains or bring up reinforcements.

  I find my men.

  “What happened?” asks Kohl.

  “The artillery cut them to pieces. But some got through. We’ve got to go back up before they get set.”

  “Is this a private war? Or can we expect a little help?”

  “What happened to that outfit that was supposed to attack this morning?” asks Elleridge. “Did they forget to wind their watches?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything, except we’ve got to get back up, and quickly.”

  “Anything to git out of this place,” says a tall, lanky private slinging his gun on his shoulder. “My mama said there’d be days like this.”

  “But she didn’t say they would come in bunches like grapes,” adds a squat, swarthy man who has a sprig of pine sticking like a plume from his helmet net. “Has anybody got some adhesive tape? I got a blister on my heel as big as a saucer.”

  “This is a fine time to think of that. Why didn’t you fix your feet when you were resting?”

  “It don’t hurt unless I walk.”

  “You won’t be walking long; you’ll be running. Let’s get it over with,” says the tall soldier.

  “Now is everybody all right? Has everybody got plenty of ammo?”

  “If they ain’t, they’re welcome to mine,” drawls a voice. “I’d just love to stay here and do the dishes.”

  “I got no grenades, lieutenant.”

  “Somebody give the guy a couple of grenades.”

  “Have I got time for a crap, lieutenant?”

  “No. What
in hell have you men been doing?”

  “I just felt the urge a minute ago.”

  “Hold it. I don’t know what we’re going to find up ahead. But be prepared for the worst.”

  “I hoid de whole kraut division broke troo.”

  “That’s a lot of boloney.”

  “That’s what I hoid.”

  “You heard wrong. Any more questions?”

  “How about the tanks?”

  “They were on the run, but they may be back.”

  “How far are we going?”

  “I’d like to know the answer to that one myself.”

  “Are we going to get any chow tonight?”

  “You’ll probably get rations after dark.”

  “Any sign of mines yet?”

  “I haven’t seen them if there are.”

  “If we take the town, can I take my crap?”

  “So long as you don’t expose your flanks.”

  “Haw! Haw! That’s a good’n.”

  “So long as he don’t expose his flanks.”

  “Any more questions?” Final drags are taken from cigarettes, and the butts are flipped to the snow in silence. “All right, let’s go.”

  We stick to the road until we reach the outpost.

  “You back again, lieutenant?” asks the corporal.

  “Have you seen anything of the krauts yet?”

  “We ain’t seen nuttin’; and we ain’t heard nuttin’ except big stuff fallin’ around. You not goin’ back up?”

  “We’re going to try.”

  “Hot damn, ’at puts us in the rear area again.” He turns with a broad grin at his comrades. “How you rear echelon lice feel now?”

  “Don’t be too happy. We may come barreling back this way any minute.”

  We leave the road, spread out through the forest, and resume the advance in a ragged skirmish formation. A rifle cracks. We leap behind trees and hug their trunks. Within a minute we are in the middle of a furious fire fight.

  The man who caught the first bullet is still in the open. He is bent double, evidently from a stomach wound. Suddenly he sits down. Another bullet flips his head back. He rolls over with jerking muscles.